I am now the proud owner of a living breathing HP2000Access system. Today I got the IOP
configured and running, then the system processor followed suit in short order. I was
quite concerned that after spending years on getting the hardware all tested and passing
diagnostics that I'd go to load the OS and the OS tape would be bad. Fortunately, that
was not the case, the OS tape read and installed just beautifully! I was able to do system
console commands like ROS, DIR, SLE, HIB, CRE, etc. Was even able to do ANN-ALL,System
going down now! before shutting it down.
The biggest wrinkle I ran into at the last minute was loading the cross-link and mag tape
boot loader from the IOP to the system processor. The documentation was slightly obtuse
about this, and I just couldn't get it to work. Finally I just said "heck with
the cross-link" and moved the paper tape reader to the system processor and did it
there. That means I can't share the paper tape reader to users on the system,
something I really need to do so I can easily duplicate tapes and read them under BASIC.
The way I was trying to load that tape was strange anyway, because I don't have the
"loader/loader" tape. If anyone has a copy of the "loader/loader"
tape, I would GREATLY appreciate a copy so I can install and configure the system the way
you're supposed to instead of the kludge that I did.
I did not hook up a terminal to the system other than the system console, I need to do
many hours of soldering to rebuild the mux panel that I have. But since the MESS and ANN
commands work, it's pretty likely the mux boards are in fact fine. I just may take
tomorrow off work to build the mux panel and hook up a terminal other than the console.
The only thing left to do on the system is rerack everything. The components aren't in
my better racks, and some are not quite mounted properly, etc. So, basically cosmetic
stuff.
One thing I need to ask the list for (besides a copy of the loader/loader mentioned above)
- an initial system load of TSB doesn't have any system library. I seem to recall one
or more list members telling me they had HIB tapes of system libraries (hopefully
including things like startrk, wumpus, hanoi, etc.). Now that the system is up and
running, I would love to borrow any and all HIB tapes I can get to build a nice system
library. If I get multiple tapes from multiple people, I'd be happy to send a tape
back that includes the entire library from everyone. I'll probably key in all the
programs from the David Ahl computer games book too.
Finally - I suspect others on the list might be trying to build HP2000 TSB systems too -
now that mine is running, after the dust settles I will most likely have duplicates of
things that I have amassed - software, hardware, etc. I will gladly offer the
excess/duplicates of stuff to listmembers. Preference will be given to people who are
fairly close to a running system, so that we can get as many of these machines up as
possible.
Regards,
Jay West
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Jay West wrote:
I am now the proud owner of a living breathing
HP2000Access system.
Congratulations!! It is certainly a thrill when that happens.